A conventional IED as applied in power system protection, control and automation is provided with different levels of role based authentication. An administrator can program individual configurations such as passwords for each level. A brief application of an IED is shown in FIG. 1. It is required that certain configuration information such as password should be recovered on an IED if a customer forgets the same. Different techniques are used for recovering password. For instance, an IED is sent back to manufacturer to reset the password. Alternately, one needs to contact support line with details such as serial number and password recovery code (randomly generated code by IED). In such cases, the customer support on receipt of these details will generate and send a recovery password, which can be used to reset the password of the device.
The available techniques requires that an IED is either sent back to the manufacturer or one needs to contact customer support, which might not be immediately feasible in certain circumstances for e.g. IED being installed in some remote desert area or in marine applications. Thus, the technical challenge is to have an easy, quick and simple methodology which also ensures that configuration management functions are easily carried out. For example, the password can be reset by the customer himself when the IED is not connected to the system and under its own supervision, without any need of manufacturer's support-line, or additional hardware or security code generating software or connecting the device to network so as to communicate with any server and the most important that the resetting happens without jeopardizing the basic security need.